[Adriane]

Quick question: looking for advice on how to handle a medical bill gone to collection issue.

I pay all my bills and or set up payment plans on them. Last year I had a pregnancy and birth with insurance. During that pregnancy, I went to the hospital for a stress test for the baby a month before I delivered (a little less than a year ago today). I filled out all the appropriate paperwork reflecting my phone number and correct address.

There was an old address on file which I updated when I went for the stress test, during preregistration for delivery, and also provided during my hospital stay for labor and delivery.

I received bills from the hospital for both my son and I during labor and delivery.  Today I get a call from a collection agency for a test done August of last year that was turned over by the hospital for collections. I never received the bill for $130.40.

So now this guy calls me up provides the date of service which matches the date of my stress test and wants me to pay over the phone. I don’t trust paying over the phone and I’m pissed, I received bills and paid for other things at this same hospital but never one for this test.

I have perfect credit and payment history. What can I do to fix it?

I feel like if I pay the collection agency than I’m admitting fault and don’t want negatives on my credit or payment history.

[Melissa]

Call the hospital, ask about the charge, nail down the facts before you deal with the collections agency. Just fyl, I got contacted by a collection agency about a small hospital bill I had missed.

They weren’t actually a “real” collection agency, in that they wouldn’t report you to the bureaus unless they couldn’t collect. They were a private company that contacted directly with the hospital. There’s were no added fees or anything like with regular collection agencies.

I would still go straight to the hospital’s billing department to get some straight answers, but it might be easily fixable by just paying it.

It might not even have gone into any sort of late reporting yet, at least not one that is easily fixable

[Michael]

Call the billing department and raise heck. One of my local hospitals basically uses collections as an extension of the billing dept. They’ll turn stuff over to collections before any attempt at billing is ever made.

[Lexi]

Check all the credit bureaus to see if you have anything on your reports as well. Try to deal with the hospital directly before anything gets reported. Such a small amount hopefully you can just pay it if it’s a legitimate bill.

[Author]

Posts